We know Cave is bringing Dodonpachi Saidaioujou for Xbox 360, but what else is the maniac shooter company working on? We picked the brain of Cave lead creator and Game Development Head Makoto Asada to see what their future plans are.
When we spoke last year, you talked about doing Vita development and had a brand new concept for a game. Since Cave isn’t doing Vita development anymore, can you tell us what happened to that game idea?
Makoto Asada, Game Development Head: I was thinking of a shooting game, but it wasn’t an arcade port. It was a brand new shooting game and it will be for tablets or smartphones now.
How is development for the new Dodonpachi title, Dodonpachi Saidaioujou, for Xbox 360 going?
As far as the core gameplay and balance goes, it’s pretty much done. I’m still working on the arrange mode to add new elements for the Xbox 360 version. Arrange mode is something that won’t be like the Dodonpachi you know. That’s all I can say! [Laughs.]
Asada-san, I have to ask by my readers always want to know if Cave will support PS3 with Dodonpachi Saidaioujou or any other titles in the future.
I’ve been working with Microsoft for years and the Microsoft development environment is easier for us to work with. For right now, we’re not looking PlayStation 3 development. We have had talks with Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, though.
Have you thought about working with Steam? They’ve been reaching out with Japanese publishers and the PC environment might be closer to the Xbox 360 platform.
There were some discussions about Steam and with the release of Windows 8 there may be a chance. We are also considering the Windows 8 Marketplace and hopefully we can bring some our games there like we have with the Xbox 360 dashboard.
Cave has been giving a lot of attention to smartphones. Are you going to work on more spinoff games like Bug Panic or are you going to focus on arcade ports in the future?
There aren’t too many arcade games left to port. [Laughs.] Maybe we’re going to have to work on spinoffs, but I think we’re going to focus on releasing original games in the future.
Can you give us a hint?
[Laughs.] There is a big trend towards to social games, so maybe a game that mixes social game elements with shooters. It’s not going to be a game where you press a button and that’s it. The game I have in mind has Cave’s maniac shooter elements while having social game elements.
Another trademark about Cave’s shooters are unique themes like the gothic lolita style in Deathsmiles to Akai Katana’s ships transform into people.
I haven’t really thought about themes yet, it’s more about the gameplay that I’m working on.
How did Instant Brain do for Cave? It was an interesting direction since it support Kinect and it’s an adventure game.
As far as the sales go, I can’t say I’m satisfied. However, the reactions from people that played it have been positive. It was a good challenge for me to do something else aside from shooting games, like the adventure genre.
Have you thought about bringing Instant Brain to America?
Hmm… it’s hard to bring that kind of game overseas since there is a ton of text to localize. I haven’t really thought about it, are people interested?
I think it might be difficult since Cave fans aren’t that aware of the title. Plus, I agree you would need to do a lot of localization work. Maybe you should release the DoDonPachi Kinect mini-game as a download first. [Laughs] What other genres would you like to try in the future?
Action games. Cave is known for games where you destroy ships and a bunch of items fly out. I was thinking of a 2D action game that has those elements. If I make it, I’ll think about the interface first whether that will be a controller or a touch screen like for a tablet.
Since Cave has such a close relationship with Microsoft will you be developing games for the next Xbox?
Personally, I would like to, but nothing has been announced so I can’t really say much about this.
